Daily Dot lays off 30 employees across company

The Daily Dot laid off 30 people — about 40 percent of its total staff — on Friday, POLITICO has learned.

The cuts were across the board, affecting everyone from upper management and the business side to the newsroom and art department. The entire product team was laid off. The budget for freelancers has also been eliminated.

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"We let several people go today as part of a restructuring," Daily Dot CEO Nicholas White told POLITICO in a statement. "While this move is without a doubt the right thing for the long-term sustainability of the Dot, this was an exceedingly tough decision to make. We expect headcount to grow back to yesterday's level soon, as we hire more people in areas like video, e-commerce and sales."

The Daily Dot, the self-described "hometown newspaper of the World Wide Web," is an online news site based in Austin, Texas that covers technology and internet culture. It also has offices in New York and San Francisco. The company was founded in 2011 by White, whose family had owned an Ohio newspaper for six generations. Before the layoffs, The Daily Dot had 75 employees.

Read White's full statement below:

We let several people go today as part of a restructuring.

While this move is without a doubt the right thing for the long-term sustainability of the Dot, this was an exceedingly tough decision to make.

We expect headcount to grow back to yesterday's level soon, as we hire more people in areas like video, e-commerce and sales.

I say "restructuring" on purpose. We are rebalancing which departments and coverage areas are most heavily staffed, as a reflection of where our business is growing. We are cutting back in areas that are not working as well, so that we can double down elsewhere.

Zooming out, we have always invested in new areas of coverage and new lines of business. Many of those bets have paid off. I take pride in the fact that we march to the beat of our own drum. But we’re not always right, not by a long shot. Unfortunately in media today things move quickly and turn on a dime. We need to stay lock-step with our audience.

There’s no way around it. Letting people go sucks, especially when those people are really good at their jobs. We’re working very hard to find our colleagues a new home.

Big picture, our product is great, our traffic is great, and our business is great. The Board’s confidence is high. Our management team is focused. I’m especially happy about our success with video, e-commerce, diversified non-Facebook traffic, and sales.